


Practicality Was Never My Forte, Darling

by yourguardianangel



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bond has more sass, BondQ - Freeform, Crossover, Developing Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Frequent updates are not my strong suit, Humor, Kittens, M/M, OR IS IT, Pets, Q has sass, WIP, Work In Progress, author attempts humor, just kidding, kitten fic, of course it is, potential bondlock?, sorry everyone, the british in general are sassy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-16 06:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourguardianangel/pseuds/yourguardianangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q and Bond have vastly different ideas about what 'baggage' is. Q's baggage is significantly fluffier than most.<br/>Bond laughs.<br/>Let the general sassiness abound!<br/>Kitten! Fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Q had never meant to gain baggage. It was impractical, illogical, and limited his option in both overseas operations and his non-existent romantic interludes. It was with much surprise, therefore, that he found himself, in the wee hours of a Tuesday morning, picking up the battered and storm-stained cardboard box in the subway station. It made tiny mewling noises of indignation as he put one hand under the soggy flap. He felt the press of soft fuzz against his hand and gently wrapped his fingers around it, and let the box fall away. Honestly, he had absolutely no intention of ever owning a pet. They were messy. They were demanding. They required balance, stability and a dependable owner. One that had more than tinned fish, two minute noodles and bulk boxes of earl grey in his kitchen. Really, Q thought, this tiny ball of black would be better off right back in his box, on the corner of the dark and frankly slippery London Underground steps.

He told himself this as he lifted the tiny form in front of his glasses to inspect. Two enormous yellow lamps peered back, stunned at the turn of events. Really, the wretch was absolutely drenched. He couldn’t even tell what colour the little creature was in the flickering fluorescent lights, but Q would guess that he was filthy enough to make even lighting redundant. He hesitated, and then sighed inwardly. 

Q murmured soft words of practicality as he tucked the tiny bundle of fur into his raincoat. It mewled in protest.

"Now, now, hush you, there’s plenty of room in here for us both and I can just tell that you are cold….” 

Tiny claws sank through his cardigan and Q blinked at the pricks of icy pain on his chest. He gritted his teeth and squeezed the little bundle tighter against him. He peaked past his scarf, into his coat. Eyes glowed from the darkness within.

“Come on then, you. Let’s get somewhere warm before the rain starts again.”

He jogs up the stairs a little haphazardly, exhaustion affecting his balance. Really, he should know better than to stay at his desk for more than thirty seven hours without moving. Or so he was told when Eve asked him why he was still wearing the same shirt as the day before. He saw very little problem with it, really, there are things far higher upon the government’s list of priorities than one quartermaster’s sleeping and eating habits. National security, being just one of them. The presentability of their 00-agents seemingly a close second. 

Q had seen the wardrobe departments.

Q knew he was jealous.

He reached the top of the stairs without incident (a bloody miracle if he’s perfectly honest with himself) and half-jogged the three blocks to his flat. He fumbled with keys and his satchel at the door as the drizzle began to slick his hair to his head. The door opened and he skittered into the warmth triumphantly, flicking on lights and dropping his bag onto the single coat hook in his short hallway. He considered his options for a moment, before moving towards the bathroom. He reached for a fluffy washcloth and spread it across the bathroom bench, then unzipped his coat. The fuzz with claws had only just stopped wriggling, and its scrawny, waterlogged limbs wheeled it onto the towel. Q stepped back.

The kitten stared at him.

“What?”

It mewled at him impatiently.

“Why should I know what to do with you? My mother was allergic to life forms as a general rule. I don’t have a clue what you want, let alone what you need.”

Its tail curled under its tiny form and it huddled down against the towel, shivering. It’s head dipped low and then shot upright again. Frankly, it looked exhausted.  
Q could relate. 

He extended a tentative hand to stroke its dark fur. His hand came away dark with grime.

“You’re filthy, you are,” he stated, pulling his glasses from his face and rubbing his eyes. He was far too tired for this nonsense. Perhaps this was all a feverish dream he was having at his desk after that last sugar-fuelled nightmare someone placed on his desk. He blinked. Blinked again.

The kitten mewled at him. Again.

Definitely still real.

“Alright, alright, but there’s no way you are coming anywhere near my bedsheets in that state, you grotty little ferret.”

The creature gave him a pitying look, but didn’t complain when Q brought the tap water up to a warm drizzle and placed his tiny form under it. He rubbed one hand across its fur as he squinted at his phone screen in the other. According to various pet websites, it was better to avoid washing it with anything other than actual cat shampoo, so he passed over the pump bottle of soap on the counter. Q didn’t want to look at the state of his cardigan as he watched deep black swirls of grime eddy down the drain for minutes on end as he studiously massaged the tiny body under the low pressure water. When it finally stopped dripping dirt, Q fished it out of the sink and towelled it off, watching as the fluffy little creature shook its limbs like a dog. Q noticed, even through the sleep deprivation, that the little fellow had a white bib against his black fur.

“Aren’t you lucky,” he spoke aloud as he carried the furry bundle through the kitchen. “You are always smartly dressed, all nice and tidy in a little tuxedo, aren’t you?”

The kitten didn’t answer.

After a brief bout of further googling (“will I accidentally kill this kitten if I feed it tuna” followed closely by “is the kittens and tuna thing a cartoon myth or an okay possibility”) Q figured it got the green light and simply brought the can and the cat to his room together. He found a not-quite-as-dirty-as-the-other-ones plate on his window sill and tipped the tuna onto that, and then the plate onto the bed with the kitten. The silence of the room was filled with wet lapping noises as Q hopped around the room removing his clothes in favour of pyjamas. He fell into bed, beside kitten and plate alike, and set a timer for six hours.

After all, sleep is for the weak.


	2. Chapter Two

Q woke up with a violent sneeze and four distinct pricks of pain on his chest. Soft blue light filtered into his room from the window, and he could hear the muted white noise of the London drizzle against his window pane. He struggled internally for a moment between covering his head with another pillow and going back to sleep, or getting up and following through on the glimmering possibility of tea. He groped at the clutter on his bedside table for his glasses, and the blurriness was replaced with clarity. He blinked, scrunching his eyes shut to scare away the last vestiges of drowsiness. He had been programming in his dreams.

  
Again.

  
Q reminded himself that he needed to actually do something other than work and sleep at some point, then disregarded the thought again. Doing things meant people. Never quite his strong suit, if he was perfectly honest with himself.  
When the strings of dream-coding faded to nothing, he opened his eyes and experimentally craned his neck. A pair of yellow eyes watched him with interest from his chest.

  
“Good morning,” he said. The kitten tilted its head to one side, and stood. Its little body gave a cursory stretch before sauntering up to head butt him on the chin. A warm paw pressed against his throat and Q laughed. He swept the kitten onto the blankets, sitting up. There were many feline protestations from the bed as he stumbled around the room, searching out shoes and appropriate clothing.

  
“You’re rather snarky, aren’t you?” he offered as he hopped about, one foot in pants and one struggling.

  
“No wonder you were still in a box.” A set of claws caught his side as he walked past the bed.

“Sorry, sorry, that was mean. I didn’t mean that. You seem lovely.”

He carried the fluffy bundle with him into the kitchen and dug around for more tuna. He watched as the little fellow hoed into the last opened tin he found at the back of the fridge, sipping carefully at his tea. Black, no sugar.

“What on earth am I meant to do with you,” he muttered to himself, hand running half-heartedly through his hair.

***

Q discovered very quickly that the information regarding kitten care on the internet is, quite frankly, overwhelming. There’s measuring of food and heating and weighing and Q simply had no idea how old the furry thing trying to untie his shoelaces actually is. He figured that since he (when did it become a he? Q supposes he just presumed) must be at least five weeks old, as he was more than happy to eat the food he gave him and, yes, definitely has some teeth there.

  
He eventually spread out last Tuesday’s newspaper over the bathroom floor and placed bowls of water, tuna and another towel on the tiled surface. Couldn’t let the little bugger get cold, after all. After a few moments, he went to rummage around in a kitchen drawer. He knew he put it somewhere…  
 He found the ball of cooking twine under the sink, and figured that if his bathroom is turned into an improvised spider web during the day, it was a small price to pay. He was dubious, but also dug out a pair of socks and placed them carefully on the floor of the bathroom, because if there was one thing Q had learnt so far it was that the internet doesn’t mess around when it comes to kittens. And what kittens want, it said, are socks.

“Now, you stay in here,” he said as the kitten looks up at him from the floor.

“I’ll be back in a few hours and I am trusting you to guard the flat for me. Don’t burn anything down, and please don’t steal anything. That’s…. That’s all, I suppose.”

He felt tremendously silly as he shut the door, careful of little paws, and picked up his laptop bag on the way out. God, he hadn’t even checked his phone for messages since last night…

Q hurried to work, reading updates on the Dubai operations and thinking about scratching posts.

 

***

“I’m busy, Bond, what do you want?”

Q didn’t turn away from his mounted bank of computer screens and Bond didn’t mind. He could see 004’s yellow triangle as it bounced across what looked like a map of Budapest in pursuit of a Ukrainian assassin. Must be a day ending in y then.

“Lost my radio.” Bond could feel Q rolling his eyes.

“Again? What happened this time?” He murmured something else into the microphone pressed against his cheek and tapped out a command on his computer. Bond saw a grainy CCTV image of an electronic door unlocking and the operative positively fly through it.

“Had to ditch it off the coast of Guatemala, the local militia were trying to figure out who I was working for.” Bond slid beside him comfortably.

“We really ought to get the little ‘property of the British government’ engravings removed.”

“Indeed.” Bond was pleased to see the corner of his mouth twitch. Something explodes on one of the screens and Q curses under his breath.

“Would you like me to come back another time?” Bond asked.

“That… Yes, that would be lovely, thanks…” His fingers whirred across the keyboard faster than Bond could follow, a small frown underneath his glasses. Bond followed the pale line of his neck down to his sweater, and reached out without even registering it. Q jumped like a startled rabbit at the brush of his fingers and Bond raised his hands in mock surrender. He raised an eyebrow.

“You had a hair on you,” he said, holding up a single black hair. Q looked at it. That was definitely not his. Damn fluffy little devil.

“Thanks,” he said faintly, meeting Bond’s eyes for the first time since he entered Q’s workspace, and then tore his eyes back to the screens.

“Don’t mention it,” Bond said, and when Q next broke for air Bond was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

“I hope you appreciate the significance of his,” Q stated as he opened the bathroom door. A black streak tripped over itself on its way out of the room. The ungrateful little bugger skidded past him without as much as a squeak of appreciation. 

Cats.

“I’m home after only being at headquarters for nine bloody hours,” he continued regardless, surveying the damage as the sound of tiny claws on floorboards echoed around the apartment. It wasn’t quite as bad as he had expected, and he hastily rolled up the soiled newspaper and disposed of it before any smell had the opportunity to linger.

“I think that’s a record for me.” In truth, he hadn’t been able to concentrate. In between monitoring phone calls to and from 006’s mobile phone in Dubai and deploying a local clean-up crew to deal with the remains of various ‘incapacitated’ hostiles left in 004’s wake, Q had been worrying. What if he had gotten it wrong, and the little fluff ball in his bathroom was younger than he seemed? Perhaps he needed constant attention like it had said in the online forums? It wasn’t like Q had any experience in identifying the age of baby domesticated animals, for god’s sake. Maybe he wasn’t actually meant to feed it tuna. Oh god, what if he had already botched this whole thing from the start somehow and he had left it unknowingly to die alone in his flat? 

There would be no dead baby animals on his hands, Q would be certain of this. He had made his excuses to Moneypenny as he pulled his raincoat on, making mental lists of things he would need to pick up from a store for his little, ahem, friend. If it was still breathing, that is. Eve had raised her eyebrow and watched him as he tripped over people and rolling chairs on his flight path to the door, picking up laptops and various pieces of technology as he went.

“You do realize you weren’t even meant to come in today, right?” she called after him, and Q could hear the smile in her voice.   
Finally, a small sound of appreciation reached him from the floor as he opened a can of real kitten food. He set it in a tiny porcelain dish upon the floor, and had barely set it down before the kitten was swooping in. Twenty minutes in a pet store and four purchase bags later, Q had felt prepared for bloody anything. He realized, much to his own horror as he pulled out his credit card, that he hadn’t spent actually ever this much money on anything in a single go. Excluding technology. He tried not to think about that little fact too much   
as he climbed the steps to his apartment. 

Q watched the snarky little guy as he eviscerated his meal for the second time that day. 

“You need a name,” he said more to himself than to the kitten. It sat back on its haunches and began methodically licking one paw, its penguin suit bib reminding him once more   
of the sharp-dressed men in his life. 

“Bond.” He said suddenly, settling upon it. It's not like 007's ever going to know. 

“You’re name, my little friend, is Bond.” 

Bond continued licking his paw as though nothing had happened. Q was pleased. 

***

“What are you doing?”

Q jumped, spilling his tea on himself and closing down the three different kitten websites he had displayed on screen. Believe it or not, there was such a thing as a slow day in the Quartermasters’ Sector. Fielding and redirecting emails and anonymous tips to the right department, whilst mostly a job for the underlings, was in fact a duty that Q had to do occasionally. Or at least monitor.

“Bloody hell- Bond, what the hell do you want?” he said, standing from his swivel chair and spreading his arms away from his body. An enormous, cold patch of tea was rapidly soaking through his cardigan and onto the white Oxford shirt underneath. 

“Shit. Shit shit shit,” He started unbuttoning the offending wet garment as Bond pressed closer, reaching into his pocket for God knows what. Q rolled his shoulders back, shrugging off the layer and laying it over the back of his chair to dry. He inspected his shirt and turned towards Bond, only to have a pressed handkerchief shoved in his face. 

“My apologies, Q,” Bond murmured, a slight smile hiding in the corners of his lips. Q refused to focus on it.

“It’s, it’s fine, don’t- Don’ t even worry about it, my fault really…” He adjusted his glasses under the piercing gaze of his agent and took the handkerchief wordlessly. He dried his tea-covered hands on the kerchief and turned back to his computer bank. He arched his back like a cat, stretching out his stiff shoulder blades, and leant forward on his desk. 

“Is there something I can help you with, 007?” Q pushed thoughts of his new little friend from his mind as he frowned at the screens in front of him. Anything was better than those ridiculous blue eyes that knew what you were thinking about without even asking. The agent cleared his throat.

“You said to come back later? About the radio?” He held up in one scarred hand a piece of charred plastic, a spring, and the activation button. A pathetic arrangement, to say the least.  
At least he’s trying though, Q thought to himself as he sighed and brushed his fingers across Bond’s palm, sweeping them into his waiting other hand. He was warm under Q’s brief touch. 

“I’ll have to start from scratch again,” Q said.

“I’m very sorry. You know the drill, line of duty, Queen and Country…” the corner of his mouth lifted in a sly smirk.

“Yes, yes, the whole chorus line, I’ve heard it all before, Bond.” He tsked at the unfortunate shrapnel.

“Didn’t you say you ditched it in the ocean?” He asked, frowning up at him. 

“Most of it, yes. That’s just what I found in my pocket on the plane back.”

“Alright then. I’ll see what I can do…” He turned away from the agent, pulling up the blueprints on screen. He’d have to rework them again, make it smaller, more versatile, perhaps embed several in the agent’s clothes…  
Q felt a warm hand ruffle his hair and his breath froze quite unexplainably in his throat.

“Thanks Q,” Bond said, and was gone before Q had turned to beat witty retort at his back.

Bloody spies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the Hiatus! I had a major work due for my HSC Historiography course, and that took precedent over this little baby, unfortunately! :)
> 
> Hope it's all good to everyone, I honestly have no idea what I'm doing because   
> a) Not British  
> b) Never written 00Q before  
> c) All my kitten info comes from the internet (like Q)
> 
> Please correct me if I've gotten anything grievously wrong or if you just wanna chat about my horrible choices! :)


	4. Chapter Four

“007, for god’s sake, I told you to turn left at _that turn,_ not the next one!” Q said down the headset as he watched the target’s signal blink further and further away from Bond’s. He was trapped in traffic in the central business district of long-European-name-that-Q-could-pronounce-but-couldn’t-be-bothered.  
  
“ _Bloody hell_ , Bond.” Q let out a long-suffering sigh and quickly began the job of hacking the laughable firewall that was the city’s traffic control operations. Q would later leave blueprints in the program for a more manageable and protected system, at least from other hackers. He was a Good Samaritan at heart, after all. He ran a hand through his tortured hair, eyes scanning for the right light number…  
  
“It doesn’t matter Q, he’s on foot, I can catch him if I just-”  
  
“For god’s sakes, Bond, wait a second, I’m working on the traffic light-”  
  
“You know, you really do make a charming GPS, Q,” Bond crackled into his ear, and Q watched through hijacked traffic cameras as the agent climbed out of his car in the middle of the traffic and took off at a run in the right direction.  
  
“You’re funny when you’re frustrated.”  
  
Q sighed and rubbed at his temples. No one had told him that aiding highly trained professional killers cross European cityscapes to neutralize targets would be so bloody difficult. Q could only equate it to that feeling when playing MarioKart and realizing in the third lap that you had been staring at the wrong car the whole time.  
  
“Still need your help telling me where to go, Q.” gentle encouragement in his ear was not what Q wanted. He looked at the target’s dot, then at Bond’s.  
  
“He’s almost around the other side of the block, you’re never going to catch him,” Q said, running approximate speeds and distances through his head. No way could he travel that far in time without a vehicle.  
  
“If you say so, dear,” Bond said amiably.  
  
Q watched in disbelief as the agent started _climbing a bloody wall_ and disappeared from his CCTV views. The man was a bloody ninja. And he kept talking to him like he was one half of an old married couple.  
  
“Visual on target acquired,” the computer chirped, and Q’s thoughts scattered as a second later the assassin’s face appeared on screen, loitering next to a large group of tourists outside a café. Bond was making a beeline towards him over the rooftops, Q presumed.  
  
“We’ve got visual, Bond, head to the right. No, right, not bloody loop-de-loop across my screen,” Q said.  
  
“You know, you’re not as helpful as you think you are. I’ll be there in a moment.” Q waited a few moments, tracking the target’s position and Bond’s.  
  
“Alright, I’m in position, target in sight and I’ve got a shot on him.” Q looked again at the screen; people were moving to and fro in front of the man, there was no way anyone could make that clean.  
  
“Bond, that is a dirty shot, _those are civilians, Bond,”_ Q warned. He understood that casualties were a part of life, he had seen Bond’s records, but he had always felt that if such things could be avoided they should be.  
  
“Q, darling, no back seat driving please,” and the heavy metallic thud of a silenced rifle came down the line. The man dropped like a tonne of bricks, and the surprised crowd spread out and then fanned in around him in concern and interest.  
  
“Target is tranquilized, being brought in for interrogation,” said Bond. Q gaped.  
  
“Tranquilized?” Q watched as Bond entered the CCTV footage and hauled the man to his feet. His head lolled against Bond’s shoulder but the vitals were still strong on the screen, and Q could see the placating gestures and grainy smiles on Bond’s face as he calmed civilians.  
  
“M wants him for questioning. Weren’t you aware?” Bond sounded politely smug on the line. He was still panting a little. Q bristled. He’d never been one to be left out of the loop. He had made it his business not to be.  
  
“I was not made aware of this, no. Obviously some sort of communicational error occurred. Shan’t happen again.” He said, voice clipped with displeasure.  
  
“Naturally,” Bond said, and Q could hear the smile without having to see it on the grainy camera.  
  
“And next time Bond, ask me out before talking to me like your bloody wife,” Q said, patronizing edge taking shape as he fought to save face. He heard a low chuckle in his ear.  
  
“Maybe I will then,” Bond answered, low and sultry, and the line went dead.  
  
What.  
  
Q sat frozen in his chair for a long time, mouth working up and down uselessly.  
  
When Eve came to check up on him, Q wouldn’t talk. He was watching kitten videos and coding simultaneously, eyes darting from side to side and hunted expression on his face. His cheeks were blotchy and pink and he stammered nonsense about GPS systems and traffic coding blueprints and marriage. He couldn’t help it. She gave him a weird look but didn’t ask, and left him a hot cup of tea all the same. Q liked Moneypenny a lot.  
  
***  
  
“Bond is an ass!” Q exclaimed to the other, significantly fluffier Bond. Bond continued to tend to his little paw, completely uninterested. Q stabbed at his two-day old Chinese takeaway with a spoon and shoved it back into the microwave. He turned around and leant against the cold kitchen bench, hands still twitching with nervous energy from earlier, and he hated his body for failing him so basically.   
God dammit.  
  
“He’s old-fashioned, and… and he has a mental health issues list as long as my arm… Not to mention, he never brings back his bloody tech in one piece…”  
  
He sighed, stirring at the heating pot of soup on his stove top with the same spoon, and jumped when the microwave timer went off. Touch-tested the MSG-filled goo in the plastic container. Still not warm enough. He stirred it again, not even noticing when small chunks of ham and sweet-corn soup mixed into the sweet and sour sauce, and then replaced it for another minute. His soup was steaming quietly in its pot. Bond eyed his owner with his keen, more-intelligent-than-you gaze, pausing between swipes of his tongue over his paw.  
  
“He’s like this with everyone, you know! It’s part of his little super-secret-spy game!”  
  
Q simply couldn’t ignore the juvenile whine in his voice. As fast as he piled on flaws the sharp cut of Bond’s suit let them slide away like the corners of the agent’s blue eyes.  
  
Shit.  
  
No waxing poetic, Q, bad.  
  
“I just… I don’t know, Bond. 007 is just so… 007, and I just…. I don’t understand _what on earth he was getting at.”_  
  
He balanced his variety of foods on one arm and scooped up Bond with the other, making his way for the beaten old leather couch he’d found in a French flea market. The kitten gave an indignant squeak.  
The collapse into the couch’s depths was more controlled than usual for fear of jostling his cargo. He ditched the kitten unceremoniously onto the pillows (what? Kittens bounce) and reached for the nearest technology.  
  
Q spent the evening curled up on the couch, swearing and unlocking his laptop every five minutes when miniature paws tapped at the key board in “imposter coding”.  
  
“Stop it, you,” he said, swishing the offensive paws out of the way, only for them to swipe back as if it was all a very grand game. He gave up eventually, and swept the sleepy dark form off to his bed.


	5. Chapter 5

Q’s life had far too many Bonds in it, he decided with a certain finality. Far too many for him to care for, anyway. He decided this on a Tuesday, exactly a month after Bond had tranquilized his target and sent his quartermaster into a grand existential dither. He still wasn’t quite over it, if he was perfectly honest.

Q had woken up late, his usual alarm failing him spectacularly as his phone had died during the night. He only realized this when a different alarm began sounding from his lounge room, and his sleep-addled eyes cracked open like oysters. _That’s what I get for binge-rewriting encryption sequences,_ he thought sourly to himself as he tripped out of bed. He did a sloppy dash across the living room to silence the offensive car horn sounds coming from a disassembled iPad, parts of it strewn from one end of his couch to the other. Thank god he had back up alarms around the house for situations like those. As his apartment slid back into the early morning quiet, and he girded his metaphorical loins for another day at headquarters, he came to a realization that oh. He didn’t have to be awake at all. It was, as the lesser folk so looked forward to, his day off.

Technically.

He sniffed, loudly and with a grimace, and brought a delicate hand up to rub at one eye. Stared down at the wiry guts of the iPad covering his lounge.

 _It’s my day off,_ he thought to himself. He thought of his bed, warm and beckoning him through the door of his bedroom. He thought of how really, if something that genuinely needed his attention came up at work, they only had to call him. He thought of the black lump, getting bigger and ganglier and sassier with each passing day, that was curled up luxuriously across his other pillow.

Sod it, Q decided. _Screw MI-6. I’m staying in bed today like a normal person._ He sauntered into his bedroom, plugged his dead phone into the charger near his nightstand, and buried himself back under the sheets again. Because sleep may be for the weak, but it was also for the non-suicidal person. Q pulled fluffy little Bond to his chest, and the kitten was still sleepy enough to only put up a token protest.

***

The texts began at around eleven.

After the third consecutive _ding_ noise, Q groaned and unraveled himself from the duvet, flapping a hand at his phone like a dead fish. He reached for his glasses with the other, and flopped back under the covers with both items in tow. He must have looked quite the sight to an outside observer, a puffy white sea slug of a lump with a single electronic umbilical cord poking out from where his phone still required charging. He allowed his eyes a moment to adjust to his glasses before bringing his phone’s tiny screen to life.

_(11:02AM) Q where are you I have a tech problem_

_(11:05AM) Youre not in your office so I left a surprise for you there_

_(11:07AM) Are you hiding in the labs Q this is actually a little bit important_

_(11:08AM) Well not, you know, EXTREMELY important_

_(11:12 AM) Moneypenny did give me the right phone number didn’t she_

_(11:14AM) It’s Bond_

__  
Q sighed. Of course. Of COURSE Moneypenny gave out his phone number to Bond. Of course punctuation was an optional extra to Bond. The ‘surprise’ piqued his interest a little bit, but not enough to acknowledge to Bond himself. That would let bond think he’d won. He tapped out a rapid response.

_Whatever it is can wait, Bond._

Q didn’t want to think about how many violations to the employee’s personal security policies had been committed already that morning without his presence at work; first phone numbers, next he’ll be told that his intern squad had glued themselves together in the prototypes room to find out if the skin-activated adhesive actually worked. In his defense, the glue’s development had seemed perfectly logical at the time. He swears.

His phone buzzes again a few minutes later. As Q unlocked it more messages came through, rapidfire.

_(11:20AM) You’re not here at all are you_

_(11:21AM) are you ill_

_(11:21AM) do I need to send one of your interns around_

_(11:21AM) you havent been kidnapped have you_

_(11:22AM) Q SO HELP ME GOD I SHALL GO AND HARASS MONEYPENNY FOR YOUR HOME ADDRESS IF YOU DON’T REPLY PROMPTLY_

__  
Q snorted.

 _I’m fine,_ he typed out, _now stop bothering me on my day off_.

It took a full minute for another reply to come through, and Q was waiting for it.

_(11:25AM) what_

_(11:25AM) but you don’t take days off_

_(11:26AM) I don’t understand_

_Nobody’s perfect,_ Q replied.

__

He sighed. Honestly, Q wouldn’t put it past the man. He held the phone out at arm’s length, turned the camera to face him, and snapped a picture. Q hit the send button before he could reassess his life choices. 

_(11:31AM) oh my god you werent kidding_

11:31AM) look at you all snuggled up and adorable 

_(11:32AM) I’m going to show moneypenny she wont believe me_

“Oh god,” Q said. 

_Don’t you dare, Bond._

_(11:34AM) too late ;)_

Emojis. How fabulous. Bond officially texted like a bloody teenager. Q lamented his fate and taste in men briefly before rolling over in bed. Other Bond had relocated to the end of said bed, and was rearranging the fur between his toes with his tongue when Q looked at him. His phone buzzed again in his hand, and he looked down. 

_(11:40AM) I’ll leave you to your catnapping. Don’t forget to eat, yeah? V. important. I’ll keep ur interns at bay til ur return_

_Don’t kill them, Bond, I’ll leave you in charge of your own damage control paperwork until the day you actually die if you do._

_(11:45AM) I make no promises_

  
Bond put his fluffy leg down and looked at him with a piercing gaze.

“Guess it’s time to get up, then,” Q said, and Bond let out a long rolling purr as he stood to follow Q to the bathroom. 

_***_

He did a quick dash through the typical London drizzle for a packet of crisps and a frozen lasagna at around four in the afternoon, but other than the morning’s texts, Q’s day remained blissfully espionage-free. He spent the evening simultaneously eating, watching old episodes of a show he had loved as a teenager, and cracking through level after level of a basic encryption simulator. It was a cakewalk of a program, really, he just wanted to check it for bugs. He had developed it months ago for updating field agents on the most rudimentary of computing bypasses, and hadn’t touched it since. _Perhaps I ought to have a chat to HR, schedule in a practical seminar for them,_ he thought to himself half-heartedly. No point letting a resource go to waste. He put himself back to bed relatively early for what was such a lazy day (that overgrown puffball must be turning him soft) and dreamt of faceless crowds. 

_***_

Q had completely forgotten about the details of yesterday’s texting when he arrived at work bright and early. He knew something was immediately amiss when he spied Moneypenny’s all-too-smug look from her desk. He should have known better. He should never have walked close enough to be roped into conversation with her. 

“Am I chopped liver, Q?” she called to him, a smile playing on her lips. He stopped, cursing himself for a moment, before squeezing the laptop case’s handle tighter in his hand and turning. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, as smoothly as one can in lopsided glasses and a lumpy cardigan. Her legs were crossed, the toe of one shoe bouncing up and down.

“You don’t send _me_ any lazy day selfies,” she clarified, and a part of Q promised to book Bond economy seats on the dodgiest looking airplanes for the rest of the man’s miserable career. 

“You know you’re not meant to hand out staff member’s numbers without their consent, Miss Moneypenny,” he snipped, “I could file a report, you know.” 

“Oh, come on Q, you should be _thanking_ me! He was really worried about you!” He refused to dignify her with an answer, but the grin she gave him made it feel like less of a victory as he stalked away. 

The miracles did not cease that morning, either. 

His walk through the Q branch desk plebs towards his office usually tended to inspire exactly zero reaction. Everyone was either too absorbed by express orders from higher up, or so glued to their screens that the whole building could fall down around their ears and they’d still be thinking about the next coffee break. That was why it was so unsettling to have the usual hum of people going about their business drop to a terrified silence. Q slowed down, suspicions flaring, as he looked around at his inferiors; their eyes dropped to the floor as soon as Q’s gaze fell upon them. They seemed almost… guilty. He sighed, and stopped. 

“It was Bond, wasn’t it?” They didn’t even have to say anything; the collective silence was enough. Q hissed through his teeth. He was never using his supposed ‘days off’ again, if this was what Bond would get up to when he wasn’t around. He scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. 

“Does anybody want to file a report?” There was the vigorous shaking of heads, and Q nodded. 

"Well, good. Get… Go back to work, everybody,” he said , crossing the final stretch of flooring to his office. He placed his palm on the recognition panel, felt the slight warmth as his prints were scanned, and allowed himself a deep sigh of relief when the door sealed him in. 

_Finally,_ Q thought. _Some peace and quiet._ He slumped himself into his ergonomic swivel chair, which the government had most certainly NOT provided him with, and was about to unlock his computers.

And stopped dead. 

Because there, sitting innocuously upon his desk, was a miniature radio transmittor. 

Completely intact. 

Q snatched it up, peeling off the little sticky note on the back of it. Surely not, he couldn’t have… 

_Bet you don’t know what to do with yourself_ , the note read. The handwriting was sharp, blocky capitals. Q gaped at the piece of plastic in his hand. Looked away. Gaped at it again.

“Well, you’re bloody well right there, Bond,” he muttered to himself. He placed it carefully back down on the table, as though it may explode, and when Moneypenny came in with a cup of tea to rib him a little bit more, he was glancing down fondly at it. 

She didn't let him hear the end of that, either.  



	6. Chapter 6

As it turns out, having something else living in your home with you does absolutely nothing for your self preservation instincts. Once, only a short while ago, any small sound outside of the usual realm of London-outside-your-window possibilities would have drawn Q’s taser into one hand and a panic button into the other, and he would have swept his own apartment until he was certain that the place was empty. Now, more often than not, he finds himself simply heaving a sigh when something clatters or thumps inside his apartment. To make matters worse, it also turned out that cats make a terrible alarm system, drawing him all-guns-ablazing from his slumber only to be proudly presented with a dead spider and a loud, joyous mewling. 

It is for these reasons that he thought nothing of it when he arrived home in the dark (is it 2am? Is it 3? He doesn’t know; numbers were blurring too much to care) to the energetic meowing of little Bond. He shuts the door with his foot, sliding all four deadbolts into place over the course of about a minute. Or perhaps it was two. Q couldn’t quite tell.

“Bond?” He called out quietly, adjusting his glasses and squinting as he switched on the lamp nearest to his door. The wash of light across sent his sleep-deprived eyes blurring again like someone had sprayed windex directly onto his corneas, and he dropped his satchel (as usual) onto its one hook in the hallway.

He stopped dead, one hand still frozen in a scrubbing motion through his hair, as he spotted the dark shaped slumped in his loungeroom all too late. Alarm rose high in his throat, and his mind raced to think of the nearest available exit point for himself, where had he left his taser, _where is his bloody cat_ -

“Your couch is really comfortable,” a roughened voice said, and all at once Q’s fight-but-mostly-flight response drained away.

“I hope you haven’t bled on it,” Q repremanded the agent. Bond huffed.

“That’s why I’m not actually _sitting_ on your couch, Q,” he replied, but the man’s voice was heavy, like he had been drugged, and Q found another lightswitch for the room.

“Jesus bloody Christ, Bond,” Q hissed out through his teeth. He looked as though he had been put through the wringer and then beaten against a rock for good long while; the left shoulder of his dress shirt was soaked through with blood, and there were small shards of glass sticking out through the fabric. His nose was a blotchy red-purple and swelling in tandem with the flesh around his left eye. Nothing appeared broken, and Q would probably have been thankful for that if it wasn’t god-knows-when in the morning and he hadn’t been looking forward to crashing in his own bed for a few hours.

“How did you even get in here? How did you even know where I live?” Q asked him, walking straight past the prone agent and into the kitchen to dig out his extensive medical kit from under the sink.

“I have my ways,” came a croak from the loungeroom, and Q rolled his eyes.

“ And you really ought to change your route home every once in a while. You are far too easy to tail.” He looked up at Q, holding an enormous white and red plastic box in his arms, and attempted an utterly disgusting (endearing) and slightly lopsided smile for him.

“Of course you followed me,” Q muttered as he knelt down next to him. “Of course you would do something like that. I’m a little surprised that you hadn’t done it earlier.”

“You know me too well,” Bond said agreeably, twitching as Q slapped an antiseptic wipe into Bond’s hand on the good side of his body.

“Wipe that on your face before you get infected with something.” Q ordered him. Bond did it in silence, wincing as it began to sting on his battered skin.

“Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired,” Bond told him as Q pulled on a pair of latex gloves and slid a pair of medical scissors through the fabric of the shirt, pulling it away from Bond’s skin where it had glued itself down in tacky blood. He located his medical tweazers.

“And you should have gone to medical instead of my home,” Q replied. He pushed his glasses further up his nose with the back of his hand. “Were you being followed?”

“I was,” Bond said. Q fastened the tweazers around the first shard of glass with a sickening scrape-crunch noise.

“I hope you lost them before you broke in here. I swear to god, if I have to move because of you I am going to-”

“I lost them, I promise,” Bond wheezed, wincing yet again as Q pulled the shard out of his shoulder in a swift and steady tug. A single pulse of blood oozed from the hole left by the glass, and then stopped. Q dropped the red-tinged piece onto a sterile napkin and wiped the residue off the tweazers before going for the next piece.

“Well, good,” Q said finally. “I’d have to seriously question your status of ‘master spy’ if you hadn’t. It’s tenuous enough a title as it is.”

At this, Bond actually gave a weak laugh.

“If you’re done with your little inquisition, I have a few questions myself,” Bond said, words faltering only slightly as another piece of glass tugged slightly at his skin. Q didn’t look at his face, singularly focused on the task at hand.

“Yes?” He managed, dabbing at a particularly stubborn hole in Bond’s flesh with disinfectant.

“How did you know I was inside your flat?” Bond asked in an absolute curveball. Q was slightly blindsided, and had to actively keep his attentions upon the wounds rather than… Anything else.

“Hm?” Q managed in lieu of an actual answer.

“When you first came in, I heard you. You called out my name.” Bond was watching him intently with his one good eye, Q could feel it. The last piece of glass came out neatly, and Q tapped it free of the tweazers before pressing a large, sterile patch across the man’s shoulder.

“You’re not the only observant one around here, you know,” Q said finally, and Bond raised his eyebrows, but did not question him.

“Alright then,” Bond said, attempting to hold the patch where it was with sheer willpower alone as Q searched for medical tape. “ And what about the inexcusable lack of alcohol in your little abode? Is there a story to that, exactly?”

Q fought the urge to sigh.

“No story,” Q said lightly. “I just don’t have enough visitors to require a constant supply of alcohol at hand.”

Bond hummed, closing his eyes as Q administered tape around the patch.

“You really need to get out of that dungeon a little more often, Q,” Bond drawled.

“On the contrary,” Q replied, “You would do very well to stay in there a little bit more _often_ , I should think.”

“Would I now?” Bond asked, his roughened voice clawing for some of its usual cavalier suaveness. Q turned away to pull the latex gloves from his hands (and to hide the pink that was climbing his cheeks under Bond’s stare yet again). His patch-job would simply have to do until he could get Bond to headquarters. He certainly wasn’t going to die tonight, at the very least.

“It is almost four in the morning, 007,” Q decided to aim for vague reprimanding but ended up sounding simply tired. “Let’s save the sad attempts at double entendres for the morning.” He stood, stretching his knees out as he did so, and went to rummage around for a blanket. He returned with one of the few that wasn’t covered in pulled stitches or black fur and dropped it gently into Bond’s lap.

“There’s pillows on the couch and painkillers in that box, if you want to use those. You’re welcome to the sofa if you feel confident enough not to bleed on it.” Bond nodded, pulling himself up from where he was leaning against it on the floor. Q retreated to his bedroom door, peering in to notice that little bond was already curled up and asleep in the middle of his bed.

“Q.”

The word made him stop as he was closing the door.

“Yes?”

There was a beat of silence.

“Thank you,” it came eventually, uncertain and quiet. Something in Q ached at the sound of it.

“You’re welcome,” he returned, and his door closed with a click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take enormous pride in the fact that Q having cats is now canon. 100%. No questioning it now.


	7. Chapter 7

The couch was unoccupied when Q hobbled out of his room. A rare, warm band of morning sunlight stretched across its empty surfaces like a searchlight. There wasn’t a single bloodstain to be seen, nor even a crinkle on the fabric to indicate that anyone had been there, let alone slept there. Perhaps he hadn’t stayed at all, Q thought. Perhaps Q’s place had been nothing more than a useful-when-necessary medic checkpoint for the agent.

Q tried not to be disappointed.

He sighed, tugging his flannel pajama bottoms back up his hips as he navigated mostly-blind to the kitchen. Those pajama pants had fitted him properly twelve months ago when he had been promoted to the position of Q; now they continued to slip hopelessly down his sparse frame. _I really ought to try and remember to eat more often,_ he thought vaguely to himself, knowing full well that he would promptly forget about such notions once he had a cup of tea or two in his system.

Little Bond was doing his best to politely trip Q over in his impatience for his morning meal, a steady stream of plaintive chirps flowing from the cat’s mouth as he wound figure-of-eights through Q’s ankles.

“I hear you, Bond, I hear you,” Q said wearily to the cat, flipping the electric switch on his kettle and opening the fridge. There was still milk in there (thank _God_ ) and an open plastic sleeve of fresh cat food (Bond had refused to eat anything other than the expensive kind from the moment it first passed his lips), and Q withdrew both. Scrounging about for a spoon, Q managed to unearth a clean one (the miracles did not cease this morning) and the pathetically frantic efforts of Bond redoubled.

“Jesus Christ, Bond, settle down already,” Q muttered to the cat, lips quirking fondly as he spooned the meat into his food dish. “You’re just going to make yourself ill.” The cat simply continued to scoff and purr, scoff and purr, in equal measure.

“Oh, my God,” came an all-too-familiar voice from behind Q, and he felt his stomach sink.

“You named your cat after me.”

_Dear Lord give me stength,_ Q prayed, eyes rolling heavenwards as he stood and turned to face his impending mortification.

Bond had commandeered an old faded tshirt that wasn’t his, stretched thin across his superiorly toned frame, and wrapped his waist in one of Q’s towels, now dyed a delicate dusky rose colour with what was undoubtedly rehydrated blood, and leaning against his doorframe for all the world like he came with the damn furniture. His hair was wet from the shower, and combed roughly back off his face. A toothbrush was dangling from his mouth, which was fixed in a wolfish grin, and his eyes were crinkled in a way that looked like Christmas had come early.

“Is that my toothbrush?” Q asked feebly.

“Probably,” Bond shrugged, still grinning. “You’re missing the point here.” But Q wasn’t particularly interested in listening and getting any point. His brain was attempting to go into lockdown, and he was resolutely going to _not_ get the point until the point was no longer his utter embarrassment and unprofessionalism catching up to him in one fell swoop.

“Right, well, that toothbrush will be going in the rubbish once you’re done with it, thankyou,” Q tried, turning to the overhead kitchen cabinet and fumbling with one of the doorhandles in a desperate attempt to feign casual sass. He found a couple of teabags and threw them into cups haphazardly before a soft chuckle had him turning around. Bond was _laughing_ at him, the bastard, arms crossed over his bandaged chest. He straightened, his weight resettling in his hips like a jungle panther and his stupid, piercing eyes were fixed upon him. Q got the undeniable feeling that he was suddenly prey in some strange and dangerous game. A small part of him wished he had snagged his glasses from his bedside table prior to this moment.

“Q, the rakish little quartemaster,” Bond stated, taking the toothbrush out of his mouth and making slow, measured steps towards him, “is a germaphobe, who named his goddamn cat after me,” Q’s face heated at such a blunt statement, and he took a small step back.

“Well, when you put it like that,” Q groused, but the backs of his legs were pressed against the kitchen bench and Bond was still far too close for any sort of professional comfort. _Please don’t stab me with the toothbrush,_ he thought, _poor Moneypenny will have to clean it up and then I’ll never live it down._ Bond was considering him, that cocky, knowing little smile still toying on his features.

“I am going to kiss you,” Bond said finally, “and you are welcome to punch me in the face if you are not interested in such a thing.”

Q was utterly blindsided.

“I-” he began, but Bond was already drawing him in, gently, slowly and steadily, and their lips were together before he could fully form any sort of half-arsed excuse. They held perfectly still for a moment; a moment that dragged its fingernails across the floorboards, ever so slowly, and Q barely dared to breathe. He could _feel_ the certainty starting to crumble in Bond, and realized that the ball was officially in his court, and even Bond would realize that the absence of a no, explicitly or implicitly, was not the presence of a yes. And God, was it a yes.

Best show it, then.

Q rose into it, somewhat taking Bond off guard, and one of Bond’s hands to come up to wrap itself around the hollows of his jawline, thumb running across his cheek to steady him. Q fought the urge to go utterly boneless against Bond, his heart pounding in his throat, his thin arms winding themselves tentatively around Bond’s neck, pulling him closer. Bond opened the kiss, but Q took the lead, drawing a gravelly, pleased moan from Bond’s mouth as he did so. Bond’s hand had slipped to join the other where it had taken up residence on Q’s hips, thumbs grazing slowly across the sharp contours of the bone.

It was Bond who pulled away first.

“Do I need to run away now?” Bond asked, his mouth smiling but his eyes searching.

_Must be difficult to be a secret agent with your heart on your sleeve,_ Q thought vaguely. 

“Don’t you dare,” Q replied, and a rare, truly genuine smile broke across Bond’s face as he reeled Q back in.

Bond’s unimpressed mewing from the floor forced them to surface several long, languorous minutes later, the human Bond laughing against Q’s lips.

“Dare I ask about the name?” He laughed, raising an eyebrow, and Q flushed.

“It’s a bit of a story, really,” he replied, a small smile threatening to break across his lips, and Bond gave him a quick peck.

“Well good, because I am in desperate need of a coffee and something horrifyingly sugary,” He sauntered from the room, eyes still pinning Q in his place.

“So you can tell me all about it over that.” He disappeared into Q’s bathroom-laundrette, presumably to find his actual murder-covered clothing somewhere in there, and Q breathed out in an enormous rush of air.

_Well._

_That hadn’t gone as expected._

Q wasn’t going to complain about it, though.

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated two stories in the last 24 hours and finished one of those, which had been being written for nearly two years (and abandoned for nearly a year and a half). Nothing like actual deadlined university work with consequences to motivate you with _literally every other thing but that_.   
>  Anyway, enjoy your final first kiss! I'll probably just be wrapping it all up in the next chapter, I'm never very good with endings.   
> It's unbeta'd, so come and yell at me about spelling and grammar or just your thoughts in the comments. <3

**Author's Note:**

> AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I'm so sorry everyone.  
> Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop me now.
> 
> Or at least point out my errors for me. 
> 
> Thank. X


End file.
